To curb anti-national activities within its own ranks, the Jammu and Kashmir administration on Wednesday let go four government employees: two police constables, one a SPO, the other a home guard among them revealed to be involved in drug peddling and narco-terrorism.
Speaking to the media on the decision, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha claimed that the measure was a direct implementation of the government’s zero-tolerance policy on anti-Indian elements that sought to compromise the country’s security. In his words, there should be no employees working against the country’s interests. ‘Such people will be dealt with severely,’ he stated.
Some of the dismissed personnel belong to police department constables Mushtaq Ahmad Pir and Imtiyaz Ahmad Lone, a Junior Assistant in the school education department, Bazil Ahmad Mir, and village-level workers in the rural Department of Mohd Zaid Shah.
Inquiries carried out also showed that the constables had used their positions to transport and sell drugs for the terrorists as required. In this respect, Pir was identified to be the head of the drug cartel operating in the north of Kashmir, while Lone was learned to be engaged as an OGW for the JeM.
Therefore, the education department official, Mir, was accused of being a ‘mule’ used to bring in drugs, weapons, and explosives across the border. Shah, who is working as a village-level worker, was nabbed with a consignment of heroin worth Rs thirty crore, which he allegedly said he had received from smugglers from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
There have been 64 dismissals of this nature since the government downgraded Article 370 in August 2019. Some people have described such actions as random or unrelated. Still, the government has justified them by saying that the tree has to be pruned so that anti-national activities do not flourish within it.
The local authorities studying narco-terrorism as a major threat to the stability of Jammu and Kashmir stated that the opponents would not be allowed to compromise the integrity of the country, no matter who they are.
The final act sends a very good signal to all the naughty employees that the administration will not condone any persons engaged in any unlawful activities against the country’s interest.
